Chapter Thirty-Three Samira #2
“I can’t tell you that,” he replied apologetically.
“It’s dangerous for others to know their future as someone else has seen it.
Some will rush toward it, some away, and it inevitably leads to chaos.
I shouldn’t have said anything at all, but Keir is like my brother.
I had to ask the question. I owe him that much. ” He waited for my answer.
I struggled to keep the shock off my face.
The King of Kaldfold had seen me in his fortune.
It couldn’t be. He had to be mistaken. I hadn’t seen him in my vision. I hadn’t seen anyone, except a gigantic being of shadow that Zarqa jerked me away from. The one that told me I did not know myself.
I was suddenly very aware of the green runes that curled across my forehead. Runes that couldn’t really belong to me. There had to have been some mistake that resulted in me, a slave from Khada Palace, having unique green markings.
Unless… unless they somehow—improbably, impossibly—weren’t a mistake. Unless they meant something. Something that had rankled Keir. That summoned a great shadow into my vision. That had caused Rade to see me in his.
It did not make any sense. I didn’t feel any different.
But Rade had seen me.
My breathing quickened. The glow from Ketet’s eye in my peripheral vision became more insistent, and I slowly lowered my gaze to the small emerald.
It had to be the sun’s rays refracting off the jewel that was causing its shimmer.
If it were actually glowing, Rade would comment on it, but he only continued to study me.
I stared into the eye of the only mother I had ever relied on, and a blanket of warmth seemed to envelop me, more than just the gentle serenity of this place.
The Mother herself, I thought, wrapping her arms around me.
Tell him, I could almost hear her whispering in my ear.
It will be all right. You will be safe, Samira. You can tell him.
The truth leaped into my mouth. I barely had time to clamp my lips shut against it.
It wasn’t the Mother talking to me but my own cowardice begging me to come clean. Fear of Bain’s violence. Fear of being the reason the Gods-Chosen never reached the Igniting. Fear that Rade would stop looking at me with those bright, hopeful eyes.
“No,” I breathed. “There is no truth to what Keir said.”
The light in the emerald guttered, and cold washed over me. The X throbbed over my chest as my heart cracked, and my skin felt like it was shriveling up against my bones.
Rade scanned every inch of my face, hardly blinking as he searched for the truth.
But then he nodded with a smile and stood, offering me his hand.
I let him pull me up, but he didn’t step away.
“We are a team, Amunet,” he said. “That’s why I saw you in my fortune.
That’s what this whole ritual is about. Fortifying us into one unit.
Gods-Chosen and Gods-Blessed, bound together.
A marriage at its most basic definition. ”
I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I only managed to whisper, “Yes.”
“From here on out, it is you and I.”
“Yes.”
“You will be acknowledged as my queen. And I, your king.”
“Yes.” The one word I was capable of uttering, apparently.
That easy smile spread wider across his face, revealing that dimple in his left cheek.
“Good,” he said. He looked down at my hand still in his, his thumb smoothing over my knuckles once before he brought them to his lips and kissed them, his lips soft and warm.
Then he released me and guided me back to Frostguard.
I hardly managed to wait until Bain shut the door behind me before I lurched for the chamber pot and vomited. I only allowed myself to cough once, not wanting Bain to hear me. And as soon as I finished, I lit a fire in the hearth to chase away any odor.
My insides felt weird, like they’d shifted to the wrong places.
Lying on that hallowed ground, seeing the light go out of Ketet’s eye—even if I’d just imagined it—it was like something had been severed.
I didn’t know what exactly, but I felt an intense absence that stretched to the deepest parts of me.
I whispered a soft prayer, but there was none of that comforting calm that usually accompanied the words. Nothing at all. Just a horrifying, disturbing silence.
What if—what if that had been Ketet and I’d denied her? Rejected her? I clapped a hand over my mouth, muffling my sobs even as the tears burned rivers down my cheeks.
Greed destroys, greed burns.
My greed. I had told myself that I was here to protect my queen and die for her if need be. But was that really why I’d kept silent with Rade?
No.
As frightening as the Kaldfolk were, this was still a much better life than the one I’d had in Khada Palace.
I was ashamed to admit it, so, so ashamed, and I hadn’t even realized it until I was given a warm room here, with consistent meals and a saltwater bath whenever I wanted, but it was possible that I…
I might not have liked my time at Khada Palace.
No, I knew I hadn’t.
I’d hated it.
I didn’t want to give up my cabin, my smoked fish, my honey-laced kefir. Velka’s smiles. Rade’s trust. Even Keir’s harsh challenges. And I’d been selfish enough to choose that over a goddess, the only mother I could remember, the only constant in my life.
She was gone. And she’d taken the comfort of the gods with her.